Well they are friends the other days of the week too, but as it turns out Friday night was the night we invited these particular friends to dinner. I love looking forward to a night of basking in the company of good friends. It is a celebration, a happy time to enjoy one another’s company.

Of course, I like it even more when the meal practically makes itself. Whenever I make my favorite lasagna, I make two, then I bake one for dinner and freeze the second one for later. This particular Friday as luck would have it, I pulled a lasagna out of my freezer. I usually make sausage lasagna, but once in awhile I make a vegetarian lasagna. To compliment the layers of vegetables & cheese, my friend brought a pile of sausages for us to grill on the barbecue. It is a nice trick if you have a mixture of friends who are both vegetarian and non.

Because the main dish only needed to visit the oven before being done, I had time to focus on making a sampling of appetizers, a more exotic salad, and to try my hand at a new grilled rosemary flat bread recipe. To be honest, this menu would be perfect with only one or two of the appetizers/tapas and a leafy green salad (like the one I tried the other day: romaine lettuce with just fresh dill and blue cheese dressing). You could even skip the flat bread and buy your favorite artisan loaf, cut it up and offer oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping. Voila!

So invite your friends over already!

Dinner Menu
Sangria
Simple Summer Tapas
Yellow Beans w/Leeks & Prosciutto
Endive Walnut Salad
Vegetarian Lasagna (guess you will have to wait for this recipe)
Grilled Sausages

It must be a sin. It felt like one: there I was, perched gingerly on the store floor, scanning the shelves and boxes of just-arrived cook-loving books at the half price book store (Half price? My husband teases me: you are spending money to save money?). I am Dutch after all: I am a SUCKER for good deals. No doubt when the deal is good, my left hand hardly knows what my right is doing. Doesn’t that ring of wrongdoing?

It really, really was a good deal, after all. And now that I am in culinary school, all my efforts to resist buying food-related, cooking inspired, chef advised, food-glorious books has gone… to hell in a hand basket (couldn’t resist).

That really is a funny phrase, mind you, as I find hand baskets to be not only convenient but environmentally friendly. In fact, a hand basket would’ve been perfect to carry home my new, such-a-steal, chef recommended books.

… My sin? Phenomenal, highly regarded cookbooks from well-renowned sources—at bargain basement prices. I should feel guilty paying only $14 for The French Laundry cookbook, one that I have ogled at in fine, boutique bookstores for many, many years. At $50, it didn’t even fit in the luxury budget… today I saved $34 when I bought it.

The French Laundry is a famous, famous, famous, famous restaurant in Napa valley. Thomas Keller is the chef/proprietor; he boasts a second restaurant, Bouchon (also with its own cookbook). I have not been to French Laundry, but I have been to Bouchon… twice. Just lovely: truffle fries, halibut cheeks, foie gras and forest mushrooms…

Oh, and that is not all.

I also bought: SAUCES by James Peterson (normally $50, I paid $9), Essentials of Cooking—also by Peterson, and The [New] Making of a Cook by Madeleine Kamman. This beast of a book has been recommended multiple times inside the few short weeks I have been at culinary school. I will let you know if I find it useful.

What is your current foodie read/book/weakness?

So, I went to an auction. It seems to be auction season in our part of the world, where people organize fabulous dinner events, with choice items to bid on, in the name of raising money. I wonder to myself if people are spending as much this year as they did last. The economy is a bit on edge: I went to the auction with a budget.

I spent my entire budget on one item. Well, 8 cases of one item.

I bought dry soda; it is a sexy soda based out of Seattle. It transcends corn syrup, sideswipes sweetness and ushers in unusual, savvy, urbanite flavors (lavender, kumquat, lemongrass and rhubarb). You might consider wearing shades while sipping from these clairvoyant bottles.

Their website is as hip as their sodas. I noticed they had a few cocktails on their site, many of which boasted a long list of ingredients. Never fear, my impatience is near. I just borrowed genius from a lemon drop and created a kumquat version:

Kumquat Drop
triple sec
vodka
fresh squeezed orange juice
Kumquat Dry Soda

Per drink: 1/5 fresh squeezed orange juice, 3/5 vodka, 1/5 triple sec, 1/5 kumquat soda. Shake with ice, strain into martini glass; pierce a few kumquats on an olive pick for garnish. Note: feel free to substitute fresh squeezed lemon juice for the orange, or a combination of the two… and skip the sugar rim. It isn’t necessary.

Orange you glad its a kumquat?

Kumquats are awesome; have you ever tried one? It is nature’s lemon drop candy; the candy that is so, so sweet yet makes you pucker straight to the back of your jaw. You can eat kumquats whole, though we usually slice them in half and remove the larger pits. I slice the halves and put them in my boys’ lunch. On my old site (didn’t have time to run two sites, though there is a chance I may resurrect it), Brown Bag Blues, I wrote a post on kumquats that you might find useful (click here).

Baked goods are best fresh, right out of the oven and the same day they are made. Why is that anyway? Because after they come out of the oven, they continue to lose moisture. And moreover, when you see the day-old pastries for sale at your corner coffee shop, they are usually individually wrapped in saran wrap. Do you know why? Because it helps keep that same moisture in just a little bit more than if it sat in a case, exposed to the air. I am already appreciating the science behind baking.

My baking CHEF simplified it like this: baking is really about knowing the science behind 10 ingredients. Know these inside and out and you will understand baking. A few of these ingredients? Butter, flour, yeast, baking soda, baking powder, sugar…

I like learning little details like this. This has so much to do with why I am going to culinary school; it is a fact-finding mission. Only I traded in the spy glasses for a chef coat and a thermometer.

Another example:

I was making a salad dressing at home the other night, and a big grin crept across my face as I tossed in a measly teaspoon of mustard. Do you know why (shall I stop with the redundant questions already?)? Because I now know that mustard is magic. It contains lecithin, and is the third party that ushers in the marriage of oil and vinegar. The little ingredient that could, whether wet or dry mustard, it creates the emulsion of oil and vinegar—the mixing of ingredients that don’t normally mix. Egg yolks offer the same magic… in case you wanted to know.

By the way, don’t be alarmed if your vinaigrette dressing separates again; the magic isn’t gone, it is just science stepping in. Emulsions can be temporary (vinaigrettes, especially temporary if you don’t have mustard or yolk), semi-permanent (hollandaise) or permanent (mayonnaise).

I won’t go on, though I am tempted. Just remember, when mixing in mustard, you too are part of the kitchen-making magic. We are not only cooks, but also scientists and magicians.

Mustard Vinaigrette
2 T wine vinegar (or fresh lemon juice)
coarse salt & pepper, to taste
2/3 cup salad oil (olive or canola)
1 1/2 tsp mustard
optional: 1-2 tsp honey

Place in jar and shake like mad; OR listen to age-old, proven instructions and add the oil in a constant drizzle while whisking (also called aerating—it helps the emulsion process as well).

Some other mustard dressings around the web:

• Honey Mustard Dressing from Food Network
• Ginger Honey Mustard from Group Recipes
• Creamy Tarragon Mustard Dressing from Letite’s Culinaria
• Cream Dijon Dressing from Epicurious

How is it going, you ask?

I think I need a tag line somewhere on my site that reads: mom goes to chef school (perhaps for my own benefit). I am approaching my third week and it remains surreal. I have a chef jacket and apron dangling from my indoor clothes’ line with four tentatively placed clothespins… are they really mine?

Recently [though not surprisingly], people have been asking me: what do you want to do with a culinary degree? Work in a restaurant?

And my answer is: I am not sure what it is going to look like on the other end. And it doesn’t bother me. I don’t know if a restaurant is in my blood, though my hunch tells me I will take this culinary degree and wear it out. But the details? I haven’t a clue.

For now, I will just focus on cramming things into my brain—and yours.

For my culinary program, I take one baking/pastry class, and it happens to be this quarter. Which is why on my first post about school you saw biscuits and on this one, banana nut bread. And I cannot tell you the inner radiance of pride and joy when a CHEF (aka what we call all of our teachers, because well, that is what they are, though it has that whiff of Top Chef that makes me want to chuckle) tells you your product—banana loaf, brown sauce, glass of water with ice for all I care—is worthy of a restaurant.

Such was this humble little loaf of banana bread:

Banana Bran Bread
one large or two smaller loaves

1 cup butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup bran
4 eggs
2 1/4 cup flour
2 tsp bakin gsoda
1 tsp salt
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Oven to 350; grease and flour pans. Cream butter and sugars (on high 3-4 minutes, seriously). Then add banana, bran and eggs (we mixed half the bananas directly, and chopped half into 1/2 inch cubes and dropped in just to blend). Sift flour, baking soda and salt; add dry ingredients to the wet, just to moisten. Fold in raisins. Pour into pans, score top of loaves with spatula dipped in oil. Sprinkle with pecans. Bake 45- 1 hour, until edges begin to pull away from sides.